The Story of Art (16th Edition) by
Ernest H. Gombrich
A Perfect Book To Travel With
Renowned not only as the best concise introduction to art history, but
also as a classic of art historical literature, this book reflects the vast
knowledge, insights, and expertise of one of this centurys greatest art
historians and thinkers. Extensively illustrated, it treats the history of art
— both chronologically and geographically — as a continuous unfolding
story. Offers a vivid, enthusiastic, and interpretive narrative written in
direct, straightforward language — with technical terms always explained
when they are introduced. KEY TOPICS: Focuses on the most significant
works of Western art. Considers each work of art in its context: shows
how art reflects the historical setting, the artists intentions, and the values
of that civilization, and how each artist built upon, or sometimes reacted
against, the style of his/her predecessors. Contains chronological charts,
maps, and notes on art books. Illustrates all works that are discussed.
Features a new design—with each illustration appearing on the same
spread as the narrative that discusses it.

Personal Review: The Story of Art (16th Edition) by Ernest H.
Gombrich
I normally find portraits and religious paintings with all those angels boring
and battle fields or works in broad format seem too "crowded" to me, so
basically I did not think much of the art performed before the Flemish
painters of the XVI century, which started painting rural life and
landscapes. I am glad I bought Mr. Gombrich's "Story of Art", since it
introduced me to a subject that I thought was only interesting to art lovers
and true "conoisseurs"; it helped me appreciate paintings I do not like and
see art in a different way. This book is probably aimed at people like me, if
you already know more about art, a deeper treatise on technique,
composition or else will maybe suit you better.
I am of those who believe that one of the characteristics of great expertise
is the ability to explain complicated things in a simple way, which shows
that the author not only understands but fully masters the topic. Well, this
is the case, the "Story" of art is not a dry "history of art", it truly narrates a
story; it puts the artists and their works in a well explained historical and
artistical context and allows you to appreciate equally works of art from
different time periods. As the author puts it: "the purpose and technical
resources may change, but art itself does not progress in the same sense
as science", a work of art is complete as such in each time period. I also
appreciated that the author included some architecture, not only paintings
and sculptures, to frame the master pieces in their full context.
My first encounter with Mr. Gombrich was his book The Image and the
Eye: Further Studies in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation which
captivated me, since it combined science with art in a masterful way. Mr.
Gombrich was probably one of the first art experts to be interested in the
research done in the emerging neurosciences, specially regarding vision.
His attention was drawn to how we receive external stimuli (light), how our
brain perceives and forms a three-dimensional image, how it makes sense
of a figure of which it only sees a countour like in a caricature, etc., but
best of all, his insights were explained using pictures of great works of art.
After reading this book, which I also highly recommend, I started searching
for other books written by him and was gladly surprised to find out that he
had written a "Story of Art" as well, which by the way seems to be better
known and easier to understand than the Image and the eye.
16 editions supervised by the author talk of the care with which a book was
written, revised and edited. My Spanish version of this 16th edition, full
format is also excellent (translation inlcuded), congratulations to Phaidon
Press for a beautifully presented book.
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